


Chronology

by LadyNorbert



Series: Elemental Chess [6]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Adventure, Alchemy, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist Manga, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, F/M, Family, Gen, Next Generation, Other, Romance, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4704104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNorbert/pseuds/LadyNorbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelve years after the ending of 'The Game of Three Generals,' Ed and Winry's son Luke is a brilliant alchemist like his dad, and he has a plan: he'll use alchemy to go back and prevent the Ishvalan War of Extermination. What could possibly go wrong? Final installment of the Elemental Chess Trilogy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reference Frame

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to whatever this is. I fully admit I hadn't planned on extending the Elemental Chess series quite so far. But the idea was niggling at me for a little while, encouraged by Tumblr of course, and one night I had an amazing flash of inspiration. So here comes the next generation of alchemists, as this story focuses primarily on the kids you met when you read The Game of Three Generals. You'll see the Mustang twins, Ed and Winry's five kids (Arakawa did say that they have a large family), and some characters you'll be meeting for the first time.
> 
> This will update slowly, because I'm still untangling the nightmare into which the characters plunge. But the first several chapters will be fun, I promise.
> 
> As usual, the title and chapter titles are all going to fit a theme. In this go-round, all the titles are related to time travel. Prepare for the unexpected, kids. Even I don't quite know where we're going for this final installment... but I do know when.
> 
> Many thanks are owed to a number of people, including my fellow author "stupidsexymustang," who helped me select the title and is the one whom I am tormenting with future knowledge. (She says "NO!" a lot.) Thanks also to my dear friend Emma, with whom I have passed many happy hours plotting FMA stories that no one but ourselves will ever see. The two youngest Elric children are named in honor of these two ladies. Thanks to all my FMA loving followers on Tumblr. And as usual, thanks to Andrea for dragging me into this fandom kicking and screaming; this is all your fault, again.

_Chronology: A form of time measurement consisting of studying the past._ **  
**

* * *

 

**Reference Frame**

_A (possibly imaginary) laboratory for making physical measurements, which moves through the Universe in some particular manner._

* * *

"Are they here yet?"

It is perhaps the eighth time Lucas Elric has heard the question since breakfast, and it takes all of his considerable force of will not to growl at the speaker. Had it been anyone else, he might not have restrained himself; but for six-year-old Danielle, he can be patient.

"If they were," he says, "do you think I'd still be up here?" His long limbs are draped among the branches of the tree in the front yard, a book in his hands itching to be read. Luke is seventeen, the eldest of Ed and Winry's brood of five, and the grin he bestows on his youngest sister is almost identical to their father's. "They'll be here. Just you wait."

"It takes forever," she complains, looking up at him with a frown. Her expression almost immediately shifts into something more crafty. It's a little unsettling, he thinks. "Are you gonna kiss Riana this time?"

"You keep those ideas to yourself," he grumbles. "Look, why don't you go see what Emma's doing while you're waiting? I'm trying to read."

"Can I come up? Will you read to me?"

"No. It's alchemy."

She huffs. "It's _always_ alchemy," she grouses, and turns to run back into the house. He shakes his golden head and resumes his studies.

* * *

For as long as Luke can remember, there have been a few certain things in his life. His mother is an automail surgeon, one of the finest in the nation (not that he's biased), and his father has an automail leg which causes him a lot of discomfort when the weather is bad. They live in the same small community in southern Amestris where his parents grew up, and until her death his great-grandmother Pinako had been the head of the family. His only uncle, Alphonse, is married to a Xingese princess named May and they usually live on the far side of the Xerxes desert; if he strains his memory very hard, he has some vague recollection of their Amestrian wedding when he was a small boy. Aunt May's brother is the Emperor of Xing, and so Luke and his brother and sisters are sort of royalty by association, or so their father likes to say.

Another thing which has always been true, in his memories, is that Roy Mustang is the leader of Amestris. Initially, and this is stretching back farther than Luke can remember clearly, he was appointed to the rank of Fuhrer Auxiliary. He held that title while his grandfather-in-law, a crusty and twinkly-eyed creature whom Luke remembers as "Grummy," occupied the top post. Grummy died in the same year that Luke's only brother Curtis was born, and Roy inherited what he likes to call the big chair. By the time Danielle came along five years later, Roy had made great strides toward turning Amestris into a democracy, which is apparently what he and his wife Riza have wanted to do since they were not much older than Luke is now. With every passing year, the country increases its freedoms, and in return the grateful people keep authorizing Roy to stay where he is and do what he does.

It's a little confusing to Luke, if he thinks about it too much. He's not that interested in politics.

It's the arrival of these famous people, among others, which has little Danielle so impatient. Every summer, the 'extended family' selects a week during which they all more or less invade Resembool, and for several days the Elric home is a cacophony of noise and affection. The Emperor and Empress rarely manage to get so far east, but they usually send Fu, their eldest, along with May and Alphonse for the gathering. The Mustangs are always accompanied by the same men who served under Roy in the military for many years, as well as their families; and of course the guest list never fails to include Sig and Izumi Curtis, Luke's honorary grandparents, for whom his younger brother was named.

These are the constant faces, but others have been known to arrive too. Gracia Hughes, the widow of Roy's best friend, occasionally travels with the Mustangs, as her grown daughter Elysia sometimes does as well. Assorted soldiers may make the trek from the Ishval Command center, like Colonel Miles or Lieutenant Colonel Douglas, as well as some of the others from Central City who were allied to the Mustangs without serving under them directly - Colonel Alex Armstrong in particular hates to miss the festivities. Twice, even the fabled Major General Armstrong descended on them from the Briggs Fortress, and Luke had privately decided that he had never seen anything more beautiful or more terrifying than this woman.

But there are two guests on their way who are more important to Luke than any other, and he has trouble concealing his own impatience to see them. Brendan and Riana, Roy and Riza's fifteen-year-old twins, have always been two of the most significant people in his life. Brendan is Luke's best friend, and the only person his own age who fully understands and shares his own passion for alchemy. As to Riana, Luke calculates that he was maybe eight or nine years old when he concluded that he was going to marry her when they grew up. Uncle Al finds this hilarious, since apparently his father came to the same conclusion about his mother at an even earlier age.

Luke doesn't care who laughs, as long as Riana herself doesn't. He'll need to discuss it with her eventually, of course; he just wants to have the rest of his future planned out better before he does. Curt and Lily are both coming along well as their mother's automail apprentices, but Luke's heart firmly belongs to alchemy - a fact which both pleases and worries his father. Why Ed would be concerned, Luke isn't sure. The State Alchemist Program isn't what it used to be, after all. The members of that elite group aren't regarded as living weapons under Roy's governance, but rather are considered the country's foremost scholars. It's for this reason that Luke wants to join them so badly - so he can spend his time researching new ways to use alchemy to help improve the lives of the Amestrian people. That's the future he envisions for himself, the future he wants to offer Riana. Of course, if she doesn't want to share it with him, he won't press the issue; he respects her independence, and her own pursuits. At present, however, she doesn't seem opposed to the idea.

* * *

Perhaps an hour after chasing off his sister, Luke realizes he's been staring at the same page of his book without actually reading it. What prompted him to dwell in such reflections, he's not sure. It doesn't really matter. He closes his book and, with practiced ease, swings himself down from the tree. He starts for the house, then pauses when a new sound disrupts the tranquility of the countryside. Turning, he peers down the road, where a rising dust cloud suggests the approach of an automobile - and there can only be one reason why one of those might be nearing his home when Rockbell Automail is closed for business. An Elric grin stretches slowly across his face, and he runs to open the front door and shout the alarm to his siblings.

"They're here!"

The four younger children come swarming out of the large house and launch themselves at the new arrivals. Sig and Izumi immediately start fussing over their adopted clan, ruffling hair and kissing foreheads and commenting on who has grown how much. Roy and Brendan are helping Ed take suitcases out of the trunk of his old car, and Luke can hardly hear anyone for the way everyone is talking at once. A second vehicle is now in evidence behind the first, bearing the Havocs and the Falmans and whoever else has joined the proceedings.

It's loud and ridiculous and crowded. The sensory overload is immediate. He could never live this way all the time; he'd go mad, and he suspects his father would too.

But father and son agree that for one week every year, it's actually perfect.


	2. Nanosecond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually had no intention of including this chapter, nor even of ever writing it. But Izumi Curtis happens to be a character very dear to my heart, and I've given a lot of thought to her motivations in one respect, so a recent discussion on Tumblr sparked a bit of inspiration for me. 
> 
> Those of you who know me will understand my frame of reference for writing this chapter. Those who do not, please forgive my self-indulgence; the plot will be coming shortly. Many thanks to my pal bayalexison for reading this before I posted it.

**Nanosecond**

_One billionth of a second._

* * *

It is a strange thing, Izumi thinks, to be a grandmother without being a mother.

To be fair, she _is_ a mother, or at least she was once, briefly. It has always puzzled her as to whether she can still lay claim to the title. Wives whose husbands die are called widows; children whose parents die are called orphans. But of all the languages whose existence are known to her, she is unaware of any which contains a word to describe a parent whose child has died. Are they, or are they not, still called parents if they have no other children?

She would like to be able to tell people, when they ask if she has children, that she and Sig have two sons. She usually can't quite bring herself to do so; she's too honest. More often she'll hedge the answer, observing that they have seven grandchildren, which usually satisfies the inquirer and digresses into a potentially dangerous round of showing off photographs. Izumi never knew Maes Hughes, but she knows _of_ him from Ed and Al and the Fuhrer, and she enjoys the idea that she might have been able to give even him a run for his money in the photo sharing department.

But as much as she would like to say it, and as much as she loves those beautiful young men she helped to raise, she just can't do it. To say that she has two sons would be to deny the existence of the third, and even though he was part of her world for such a short time - barely enough to register in the minds of anyone who knows her story - he was still there. He was real. A dream made flesh, however fleetingly.

She and Sig rarely speak of him. The grief has long since lost its freshness, though the pain occasionally resurfaces. But they still mourn his loss, all these years later, both the loss of the actual child and the loss of who he might have become.

* * *

The morning after Izumi and Sig arrive in Resembool, the gathering is completed by the arrival of the Xingese contingent. Alphonse and May have a considerably smaller brood than Edward and Winry, even with the addition of their royal nephew. The cousins, semi-cousins, and however the Fuhrer's children might be called are all eager to see one another again after their lengthy separation, and from her chair in the shade of a large tree, Izumi watches with amusement and pride.

Her adoptive grandchildren call her "Zoom," which has tickled her fancy ever since Luke attempted to say her name as a baby and could only utter a fragment of it. Like Riza Mustang's departed grandfather, who was known to the children of the extended family as "Grummy," she accepts and truthfully relishes the nickname being universal. To be perfectly factual about the matter, Izumi has no claim to any of the children; but in a roundabout sort of way, that sort of allows her to have a claim on all of them, and whether they are 'hers' or not is immaterial. She loves every one of them regardless, from six-year-old Danielle all the way up to university graduate Elysia.

But it's Nina, the elder of Al's two children, who has a particular grip on her affections. Part of it is a matter of vanity. Ed and Winry's gaggle of five are golden-haired, with either the sun or the sky in their eyes; even Jian, Nina's younger brother, has so much of Alphonse in his facial features that Izumi can only ever see the boy's father when she looks at him. But Nina favors her mother's Xingese coloring, which means that of all of the adopted Curtis grandchildren, she comes closest to looking like she could be Izumi's own flesh and blood descendant.

The other part, the larger part, is that Nina _listens_. She is barely twelve years old, but her understanding of the world is strangely profound. Her personality is so like her father's that it's almost not to be believed.

While Luke and Brendan drag Alphonse out to the barn (to talk about alchemy no doubt), and the other children cajole Edward and even Sig into a game of hide and seek, Nina and her mother join Izumi in her shady retreat. Riza is helping Winry prepare lunch for the assemblage, and Roy is playing cards with his men, so Izumi indulges in the company of her younger honorary daughter-in-law. Nina sits on the ground in front of her, and while the two women chat Izumi combs and braids the child's wealth of glossy black hair.

The conversation is mostly mundane; how well do the trains travel through the ruins of Xerxes? What is the progress of the enormous new school which is being constructed in Liore? How is the butcher shop? How are the Emperor and Empress, and their two younger children? The answers are traded as satisfactorily as the questions are dealt, though it's not until the last subject is raised that Nina ventures to join the discussion.

"The twins just turned five," she says in her soft, musical voice. "Shu looks kind of like me when I was her age. Hai is very tall already, everyone at court thinks he might even grow to be taller than Uncle Emperor." She giggles a bit. "Uncle Fuhrer accused Uncle Emperor of copying him. He said he must have made having twins look really cool."

"Well, your aunt and uncle must be happy that they're growing so healthy," Izumi notes. She glances at May. "They, er, had difficulties, didn't they?"

May nods, a bit solemn. "Lan Fan had two miscarriages between Fu and the twins. That's why they're so far apart in age."

Izumi sees the uncertainty mirrored in the younger woman's dark eyes, and understanding dawns after a few seconds. She doesn't want the princess to feel like she has to dance around the issue with her; it's a tender topic, of course, and always will be, but not so tender that she can't stomach it. "It's a hard thing to endure," she says simply. "But she's a strong woman."

"She is. We were all a bit concerned when we realized she was having two at once, though. I mean, she lost the other two before they announced even to the inner court that she was expecting, so I found out too late to help her. I made her promise that if she did have another she'd tell me right away." Izumi nods, recalling May's skill with medical alchemy. "But twins in the royal family was a complete anomaly - in all the recorded history of the empire, that's never happened. So Ling wasn't taking any chances as it was, but when he found out there were two?" She can't suppress a chuckle. "He was absolutely relentless. He barely allowed her to move without someone at least holding her hand, lest she fall. I really thought she was going to kill him before it was all over."

"And the fact that she delivered safely probably only made him decide he was right." Izumi laughs too. "Ah, fathers. They mean well, bless them."

"Zoom?"

Nina has her head tilted back, just barely resting on Izumi's knees. "Can I ask you something about that?"

"About what, sweetheart?"

"Well... you lost your baby too, didn't you? Like Aunt Empress?"

"Nina!" May is at least mildly horrified at her daughter's inquiry.

"It's all right," Izumi tells her quietly. In a normal tone, she answers the question. "Yes, I did. A long time ago, before I ever knew your father and uncle."

"Couldn't you have another one?"

Izumi glances at May, who is turning an interesting shade of purple, and gives her a reassuring smile. "No, I'm afraid not. I was pretty sick even back then, you know, and after my son died I became sicker. The doctor said I would never be able to have one."

"Oh." Nina digests that, as Izumi arranges the plaits of her hair. "You could have adopted one."

"We thought about it."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I'm still sick, honey. I'm better than I used to be, thanks to your grandfather Hohenheim, but I'll never get completely well," she explains. "And I was willing to be a mother to a child who didn't have one, but I was afraid I might die and leave him or her motherless all over again."

"Like Papa and Uncle Ed?"

"Yes, like your papa and Uncle Ed. It was hard even to let them into my life." She gives one of the braids an affectionate tug. "But I'm so glad I did."

Nina smiles up at her. "Me too."

"All right, then. Go on and play with your cousins, they're all hiding someplace."

Obediently, the girl gets up and runs off, and May shakes her head. "She's usually so quiet, and then she comes out with something like that. I'm so sorry."

"No, there's no reason to be sorry." Izumi leans back in her chair, reflective. "Asking questions is how we learn. I admit I didn't expect it, but no harm done."

"You're sure?"

"I made my peace with it a long time ago. I lost one son, but I gained two more." She glances up at the pattern of the clouds.

"And Ed and Al lost their parents, but gained you and Sig," May concedes. "Maybe Trisha and Hohenheim - wherever they are - maybe they're taking care of your son like you took care of theirs."

"I think I like that idea." Izumi smiles. "Equivalent exchange once again."


	3. Chronology Protection Conjecture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alphonse gets his first hint at what Luke's been doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, an update. My apologies for the delay. As you may know if you read the author's notes on something else I wrote in more recent days, I fell into a really terrible case of writer's block after finishing the previous chapter. Between the holidays working retail and just a general state of being incapable of creativity, this story languished on my hard drive. And then my computer died and had to be replaced, which helped nothing. So I wandered away to a much older fandom, and that broke the block, and now here we are - months later than I intended. Thank you for your patience.
> 
> The updates are still going to be slow, because my brain is a bit swamped. Ideally, I would like to have this finished before this year's holiday season, but I'm not promising anything. Quite honestly, this is a difficult story to write.

_Chronology Protection Conjecture: Stephen Hawking's conjecture that the laws of physics do not allow time machines._

* * *

Fond as he is of Xing, Alphonse is of the opinion that nothing quite compares to the air of Resembool.

The desert crossing, though much more comfortable now thanks to the Trans-Xerxesian Railroad which joins Amestris to Xing, is still long. His children are always impatient to arrive; admittedly, so is he. And once they do arrive, once his eyes drink in the familiar green fields and his hair is ruffled by a Resembool breeze, he feels the years peel away from his soul. For a moment, at least, he is fourteen again.

He breathes deeply during his return visits, as if he can somehow store that air within himself and carry it home with him. It's the same sun, the same wind, and yet not the same at all. _Home_ is a thoroughly indefinable concept, but the body knows when it's been reached and something deep inside tries desperately to hold onto it.

For a time after their arrival, he simply observes his family (the extended nature of which defies measurement). The Fuhrer is aging well, as might be expected of the handsome young man Al once knew; his twins are nearly fully grown now, and the head of black hair is silvered with both the passage of time and the weight of responsibility. But his laugh is just as Al remembers it, and the etchings of age seem to melt from his face as he follows Ed and most of the younger children into a giant hide-and-seek game.

Al might have joined them, but Luke and Brendan intercept him before he can even begin to plot a hiding space.

"Uncle Al, we need to talk to you!"

He chuckles. Brendan has a serious, almost studious expression which strongly reminds Al of the boy's mother. Luke, on the other hand, is so much like Ed that Al occasionally has to remind himself that he _isn't_. "What's going on, boys?"

"We've had a major breakthrough," Luke says fervently.

"Well, _he_ has," Brendan corrects. "I'm not the alchemist he is. I don't even understand half of what he's told me about this."

"It's in the genes," Luke insists, with a modesty that Al _knows_ he didn't get from his father. He stifles a laugh.

"What's all the excitement, then?"

They each seize one of his hands and all but drag him out to the old barn behind the house. Briefly he's distracted by a memory; the building hasn't seen much use since the days leading up to Ed and Winry's wedding, when it had helped to provide shelter for the various military personnel who had come as part of Fuhrer Grumman's entourage. He tries to keep his chuckling to a minimum as he recalls the bachelor party and the increasingly ludicrous gambling stakes which had accompanied the card games. The boys release him in order to run ahead and pull open the heavy double doors, letting sunlight flood into the shadowed interior.

Immediately Alphonse discerns a transmutation circle, painstakingly mapped out in the dirt floor. They release him and scuttle around to stand on opposite sides, beaming at him. "Well? What do you think?"

Frowning, he scrutinizes the circle, one hand lifting to scratch amid his own thinning hair. He doesn't recognize the pattern. A lot of the symbols are familiar, but he's never seen them laid out in such an array, nor are they usually seen in alchemic circles with one another. Lines intersect across the center of the circle in a remarkably intricate crisscross formation, suggesting some sort of limitless merging of... what, exactly?

"Just what does this circle do, boys?" he asks finally.

The way they look at each other and smile causes his stomach to shift in a rather unpleasant fashion, although he isn't sure why.

* * *

"Let me see if I understand this," Alphonse finds himself saying, several minutes later. "You believe you've unlocked the secret of using alchemy for _time travel_?"

"Well, it's just a theory at the moment," says Luke, "but the basic principles are very sound."

"Explain this middle section to me, please." He points at the lines that he finds particularly confusing.

"The intersection of realities," says his nephew. Brendan is merely nodding; Al suspects that he wasn't exaggerating when he said that he only understands part of the whole. "There's a very prominent theory regarding the time stream which suggests that there are infinite universes and infinite possibilities within those universes. In our reality, Uncle Al, you're an alchemist; but by that theory, there's also a universe where you're a baker. Where you're an automail mechanic. Where you married Mom instead of Dad. Where Brendan's dad never became the Flame Alchemist."

"And the theory suggests that what we regard as time travel would really just be moving from one reality to another," Brendan continues.

"Have you..." Al is almost afraid to ask this. "Have you actually tested your array?"

"On a small scale. It's tricky," Luke muses. "I can send something forward in time, but not back. At least, as far as I can tell - it's tough to know if a thing actually went into the past or if I'm remembering something that never actually happened."

"Or if, as the theory suggests, you sent it to an alternate reality," Brendan reminds him.

"Or that."

"Can you show me?" Al hates to put any sort of damper on their enthusiasm, but he also knows all too well that alchemy - and certain kinds of alchemy in particular - should never be treated as a toy.

Obligingly, Luke removes his wristwatch and sets it down in the middle of the array. His movements are careful, precise; he's afraid to disturb the lines drawn in the dirt. Al understands this. With a confidence that's more than a little familiar, he presses his hands to the ground at the edge of the array. The circle lights up, and sure enough, the watch vanishes.

"How far did you send it?"

"This particular array is meant to send something forward in time precisely five minutes," Luke explains. "To reach a different point in the time stream, the array has to be drawn differently. This is the part, here along the edges, that really makes the specifics."

"Well, it's fascinating, no question," says Al. "But I have to ask... what is it that you hope to accomplish by doing this?"

"Eh... about that," says Brendan slowly. Luke shoots him a _look_ , clearly hoping that Alphonse won't notice it.

"We don't have any definite plans as yet," he says. "But I have a few working theories... mostly with regard to past events. There's so much pain in our country's history - in your personal history, and my dad's. It would be great if we could go back and just... wipe it out."

"Oh, no," says Al, shaking his head. "I appreciate the notion, Luke, I really do. But I think that changing the past just... it opens up too many possibilities for trouble. Plus, you yourself said you're having difficulty sending anything back."

"Well, that's why they're working theories," Luke counters. "I can't very well put them into practice just yet."

"It's not a taboo," Brendan ventures. "It's not forbidden."

"That's true," concedes Al. "But if the best thing you can say about a course of action is that it's not technically against the law, that may mean that it's not the smartest thing to do."

"Oh, come on, Uncle Al," Luke protests, and he's showing a faint bit of Elric temper now. "You're not gonna lecture us, are you?"

He shakes his head. "No. I trust you boys to be smart about this. And I'm glad you showed me. Really, this is very impressive and you have a right to be proud. I didn't know anyone had even considered using alchemy for time travel."

"We -" Luke is briefly interrupted by a flash of light. The five minutes are up, and his watch is once again lying in the middle of the transmutation circle. Al compares the time on its face to that of his own watch; sure enough, Luke's watch is now running five minutes behind. "You see," he says, holding it out, "as far as the watch is concerned, it's still five minutes ago."

"This begs the question," says Al, thoughtfully, "of where it goes when it's between _then_ and _now_."

"That's something I haven't figured out. I mean, it must be somewhere - matter can't be created or destroyed - but I also think it has to be some _when_. There must be a sort of limbo that exists in between the various realities, where time doesn't move."

"Or maybe it just sits at the gate of Truth for the duration," Brendan offers.

"There's a thought," Al agrees. "I never saw anything like that when I was there, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen at someone else's gate. Or it could also just mean that no one was attempting time alchemy while I was Truth's houseguest."

Luke has put his watch back on his wrist and is diligently winding it, making the hands line up with the numbers just so. "We can discuss this more while I'm here, all right? I'd like to hear the details about your theories, Luke, I really would."

His nephew seems appeased; the tenseness loosens from his shoulders, his wary eyes relax. "I'll show you my notes."

"After supper? I'd like to have a full stomach before I sit down to any real alchemy discussion."

The young alchemists both crack a smile. "Yeah, sure. But - just us, okay? We don't want anyone else to know about it yet."

"I'm the first one you've told? I'm flattered." And he is, he really is. But he's also a little suspicious. Luke has never come to him about an alchemy theory that he hasn't first shared with his father. It's always been a bonding factor between Ed and Luke, and the notion that Luke now wants to hide his research from Ed is, at the very least, peculiar.

Al decides that he will honor their request for secrecy, at least for now. But all the same, something is screaming in his ear that he needs to keep a close eye on the situation.

* * *

They rejoin the others and promptly lose themselves in the hide-and-seek game which is still in progress. The afternoon slides away in a haze of sunshine and laughter. But Alphonse can't help thinking about what Luke said, about what he'd really like to do with the time alchemy if he only could.

 _Wipe out our pain,_ he thinks. _He's a good boy. I know he only means well. But... if you change the past... who do we become in the present? Our pain - our mom dying, the human transmutation, the hunt for the stone and the battle against the Homunculi - all those things have made us who we are today. If you take that away from us, if we don't have those memories, then who are we?_

He isn't sure he wants to know.


End file.
